


So Solly

by snowydot



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drama, F/F, Romance, Unwanted Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2020-07-09 14:50:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19889635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowydot/pseuds/snowydot
Summary: Beca has to deal with her feelings about an unwanted pregnancy.Chloe needs to figure it out how to move on with her life after losing another important person in her life.***(This story contains a lot of depressive content and talks about feelings during and after loss. If any of these subjects makes you feel triggered or uncomfortable, don’t read it.)





	1. I - Beca

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a story I’ve been writting since October 2018. 
> 
> I have it all planned, from beginning to end and I have to warn: it’s angsty.
> 
> Some chapters will have triggering contexts, but I’ll make sure to tell you beforehand. 
> 
> The chapters are intertwined between Beca’s and Chloe’s point of view and it might confuse you guys a little on the beginning, but I promise it will be easier to understand with time.

“Don’t get too close. It's dark in here.”

The air around Beca was heavy. The pressure took over her entire being, pressing on all sides.

She turned towards the voice. “Who’s there?"

Beca couldn't see an inch in front of her. The broken breath made her feel dizzy, almost as she could suddenly faint. 

“Don’t worry. One day we will meet where there is no darkness.” 

The voice came to Beca in a tranquil tone, almost carefree. It was a statement, not an order, so solemnly dictated that all her fears went away and Beca sighed, relieved. 

***

Beca opens her eyes with difficulty, feeling her body protest. She rolls over the bed to face the clock that pointed out she has been laying there for two whole hours. Despite this, the sun still shines heavily outside the window, and it feels so different from her mood. A few hot rays escape through the crevices of the thin curtain, warming up Beca’s face and burning every place they touch.

Beca gets up and closes the window, leaving the room illuminated only by the brightness coming from the television. Suddenly, the dream comes back to her mind.

Dreams are strange, a language she hasn’t dominated yet. Beca doesn’t understand why we have senseless dreams sometimes but then in other ones, the events seem so real that they make us doubt if they’re not in fact reality. She’s read somewhere that when we become aware we're dreaming, we can control it, make things take the way we want them to. As if we were the authors of those silly stories that tend to hammer into our heads day after day non-stopping. Those typical stories where everyone finds their perfect match and everything works out in the end. But the truth is, this thought doesn't work for Beca. 

Not really. 

The credits of the movie they were giving on tv are rolling when Beca turns in bed, staring at the ceiling. Her hands automatically fly to her belly, embracing herself, as if she could shrink to disappear if she stays there quiet. As if it were rehearsed, Beca’s mind begins to work, reminding her of the events from the last few hours. 

She didn't want to remember. 

She didn't want to think about anything but the silly movie that had just finished, laughing without concern at the stupid romance and bad performances. Why is it so hard for Beca to concentrate on the simple things? Beca knows she needs to meet the girls and distract herself a little, but apparently life insists on remembering her about how things never turn out the way she hopes them to. 

The bedroom door wides, revealing a flustered Amy. Beca’s hands fly to her eyes, covering them from the clarity that suddenly crosses the room. 

Amy approaches the bed. “You look terrible." 

A grimace takes form in Beca’s face. “You should say I look radiant if you want to make me feel any better. That’s what people usually do, you know." Beca feels the sarcasm taking over her controls right away.

“Alright then. Now can you get your radiant butt out of this bed and come take a walk with us?" Amy extends her hands touching Beca’s arms and Beca lets herself be taken as Amy pulls them for herself, wishing to be alone deep inside, but not that much. 

Beca walks straight by, ignoringAmy’s protests and stepping into the bathroom. The icy water contrasts with Beca’s hot face, giving her goosebumps. She lets it run through her neck, wetting her shirt and Beca tilts her head down, facing the floor. The droplets falter and drip on the floor and for a moment Beca imagines they can wash away all her thoughts, leaving them neutral for a second. 

She takes a deep breath, slowly releasing all the air through her mouth. Then she does it again and again, searching for some control over her body that just started to shake lightly. 

"Beca?" Amy's voice reaches her through the door. 

In order to try to convince her that she’s okay, Beca leaves the bathroom and raise her eyes to face Amy.

They walk side by side through the campus in an uncomfortable silence and it feels so different than how they usually act. 

In normal days, Amy is excited about nothing but being with her friends, making silly jokes about the people sprayed around the campus. In normal days, Beca’s with her grumpy semblance and sarcastic humor, feeling thankful inside for being where she is, laughing at the way Amy says senseless things all the time. 

But it’s not a normal day, and it probably won’t be for a long time. 

Beca’s eyes inspect all the students and stop when they meet a pair of chocolate ones looking back at her from across the park. 

Jesse observes her tranquilly. His look is light, without a bit of sorrow, but Beca can still feel the looks of Stacie and Cynthia Rose falling on her and she knows what they are thinking. 

They feel sorry for her. 

Beca meets Jesse’s eyes and concentrate on them as if she needs them to remind herself of how to make her feet work, because until then she didn’t realized she wasn’t walking anymore.

Almost in a leap she’s by their side. Beca faces her friends without knowing exactly what to do or say, and she realizes they probably feel the same way because Stacie and Cynthia Rose weirdly avoid her eyes. 

But not Jesse. 

Jesse keeps looking at Beca with a funny face and gives her a kind smile. He’s always like that. It doesn’t matter the situation or whatever is happening at the moment. It doesn’t matter if the day is so terribly hot that Beca feels as if she could melt into a puddle right there, more because of her wrong thoughts than by the heat, and it’s so natural that Beca sees herself smiling back at him without even noticing it. 

“Hey, Deejay Bee!” Stacie looks like she just woke up from a dream and pocks Beca with her shoe. 

“If you’re going to stand and tell me to sit down, I swear I’ll leave.” Beca gives her a playful smile. “By the way, this lipstick on your cheeks makes it look like you were slammed.” She feels the tension disappearing around her as she hears Stacie giggling. 

“Who can grantee you that’s not exactly what happened?” Stacie arches one of her eyebrows in a challenging way. 

Beca’s smile comes easier this time and she gets herself thinking that no, things aren’t as out of normal as she thought they were. Just because she’s a mess inside, it doesn’t mean that her exterior has to be a mess too. They’re still her friends, same as always. The nonsense words, the challenge looks and the careless air are still there. 

Cynthia Rose tells them about her agitated Saturday with a tall-and-hot girl in a dance club and soon Beca finds herself sitting down on the floor in front of her friends, her head bobbing backwards with a laugh that’s too loud to be fake. 

“You guys were expelled from the club?” Jesse looks at Cynthia Rose, his eyebrows arched in surprise while the laugh escaping his mouth is almost as loud as Beca’s. 

“How can you still be surprised by that? Wait until she tells you what happened with the Australian gi-“

“Amy!” Cynthia Rose almost screams, an arm reaching out to playfully slam Amy’s. “You promised to never talk about that.” But she wasn’t mad at all. Beca noticed the corner of Cynthia Rose’s lips holding back a smile.

Amy puts her arms in the air in rendition. “Not here who said that, Cee.” She puts both her hands on her throat as if she was about to hang herself. “My mouth is a grave.” 

Beca uses both her arms for support as a way to get closer to Amy and settles there, resting her back against her friend’s. 

The conversation around Beca is loud, but she’s not paying attention. She lets her mind travel to situations that never happened but that she created inside her head, as if doing that Beca could prevent herself in case any of those things actually happen.

Beca can’t help herself. It’s a way of defending herself that she carries since she was little. Maybe because she needed it. She needed to think about how bad things could go at home with her parents and at the same time conceal with what was happening at school, because she found a way to put in her head that “ you don’t need any friends, Beca, everything’s gonna be fine .” And it was only when everything wasn’t fine Beca realized that maybe, just maybe, she was wrong. 

There was this possibility, right? 

But then she grew up, or she had grown a long time ago without noticing it. The questions went from “did you finish your homework, Beca?” to “are you looking for Colleges, Beca?” Then Barden happened. 

And with Barden, everything else. 

There and now, sitting on the floor as she observes the rays of the Golden Hour reflecting into Stacie’s green eyes while her lips open and close as she talks, making all her friends laugh, Beca feels something similar to that feeling that dominated her when the autumn leaves flew around her face and fell onto her hair when she was little. Almost as all of her fears and insecurities had disappeared completely. 

Almost. 

When Beca realizes the sun is not shining anymore, Jesse is walking by her side, the girls a few steps behind them. 

“Beca?” His tone is filled with worry. Beca feels like they are walking towards the conversation she doesn’t want to have,  _not yet_ , so before Jesse has the opportunity to keep going, Beca rushes to interrupt him, shaking her head. The movement is minimal and faint, but Jesse catches it. He releases the air through his mouth heavily and throws his arm around Beca’s shoulders. She lets him side-hug her and they keep walking, feeling the heat of the stifled breeze hug both their bodies as they walk back to the dorms. And when the words come in a whisper, Beca feels a goosebump running to every part of her and she closes her eyes in a faint attempt to absorve them. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” 

Beca’s not sure of that, but she accepts Jesse’s words. 

***

The heat is so absurdly strong that Beca feels like melting even if she just left the shower. It’s Autumn, it shouldn’t be like that. The wind should be cold and dry, preparing nature for Winter that’d look eternal before the flowers grow in the Spring, glow in Summer, only to die again when Autumn arrives. The world has four seasons that come and go, tremble and change all the time. The rules of nature never changed. They dominated the Earth before the human race, they are here now and will remain until there’s no piece of the actual generation. People should be used to changing. 

And still, Beca is not. 

Beca loses herself in her thoughts for an instant as she sits at her desk, analyzing the pictures she took with her camera last summer. She looks at the little polaroids and her attention fixates on a particular one, one that she had no idea that existed until now. Stacie probably took the picture in a moment Beca was too busy to notice. It’s clear from the way they danced under the stars, Theo’s hand circling Beca’s waist as he twirled her around. Beca’s hair was frozen up in the air and her feet didn’t touch the ground. 

Beca can almost feel his warm breath against her neck. She can almost hear hergiggle mixed with the wind in her ears. The alcohol had made its job that night and for a minute Beca wishes everything to stay frozen on that picture, on that moment, so she could never worry about what happened on the following minutes once they entered the tent behind them. She tries to forget the way they smiled like idiots when Theo gave her his number when they followed different ways on the next morning, so different from the voice that sounded from the other side of the line this morning. 

Suddenly Beca realizes she’s thinking too hard and if she keeps going, she’ll not handle it. She throws the polaroids inside the drawer a little too hard and falls onto her bed, the room only half illuminated by the moon outside. 

And then the door is opened abruptly, making Beca’s body shake. “I know how hard it is to be you, but you don’t have to throw all your anger on the poor door. It won’t handle a week if you keep opening it like that.” 

The light is turned on and even though Beca can’t hear her laugh, she can see the way Chloe’s shoulders shake up and down. 

“Neither will you.” She turns to look at Beca with a smile full of teeth and walks to the door to caress it dramatically. “I’m sorry.” And then Chloe throws something on Beca. “You’re lucky I still remember they’re your favs.”

Beca didn’t realize how hungry she was, because she instantly opens the pack and throws a cherry into her mouth, thanking the Universe more than ever for her best friend to pay attention to the things she says. 

“You’re extremely helpful, but I’ll only forgive you for the little fright you gave me with one condition.” Beca sees the way Chloe’s eyebrows arch curiously and the redhead turns to face her. “No movie tonight.” 

It’s easy to ignore everything when she’s there. Extremely easy, Beca thinks, as she watches Chloe laughing and throwing her red hair behind her shoulders before walking to the bathroom and closing the door behind her. Her muffled voice almost doesn’t reaches Beca, but she catches Chloe’s little “try me, Mitchell.” 

Beca turns the computer on and searches random movies on Netflix, trying to find anything that might interest her, but soon she realizes she’s not really paying attention at anything anymore. The synopsis of all the movies sounds terrible and Beca doesn’t feel her fingers touching the mouse repeatedly, because even though she knows she’s doing it, her brain isn’t really concentrated on the action. 

The words Theo said through the phone come and go as a ping-pong game playing inside her head. 

_“You can take care of it by yourself.”_

You’re wrong, Theo. 

_I can’t._


	2. II - Chloe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING: this chapter contains light references to self harm scars. There’s nothing explicit but if you find this subject triggering, please do not read it.

Three weeks. 

It’s been three weeks since they arrived at Tybee Island and the sun is almost setting, taking with it their last day there. 

Chloe’s feet sink in the soft sand as she walks away from the lighthouse’s base where the others stand a bit behind her. Her toes are killing her, but the sand’s heat brings a welcoming warmth to her body and Chloe closes her eyes for a minute, feeling her hair fly with the salty breeze as she approaches the sea. 

It took a hundred seventy-eight steps to get to the top of the lighthouse. A hundred seventy-eight black steps that made Chloe dizzy and regret that she decided on wearing sandals instead of comfortable shoes. But it didn’t bother her once she arrived at the top, the view is breathtaking. It’s possible to see all of Tybee from up there and at the top of that little world, Chloe almost forgot everything. People, the lack of them, deceptions and joys. 

Sins, moments, memories. 

Chloe felt small. 

But deep inside, she likes it. Chloe likes giant places that remind her she’s just a tiny person in the world and that her problems doesn’t really matter. That there are reasons and causes bigger than her. 

Tybee is enchanting. In all the aspects, the history, the attractions and the people who live there. Aubrey insisted for Chloe to come with them and Chloe doesn’t deny it, she’s thankful for being at that little paradise and feeling closer to  fine than she has been in weeks. She knows Aubrey doesn’t blame her, how could she?

Chloe’s sensitive enough to know that no, Aubrey isn’t a hundred percent fine, their friends either. This travel is for  them , for them to try and fix each other. 

At least, it should be.

They went to the pier earlier. Those that the bridge extends itself as far as sight can reach, loosing itself between the sea. They were too excited, the smiles too bright to be real, as if it was a color in the wrong shadow. Not fake, but  mate . 

And Chloe knows what it means, they all do. 

They stepped into the pier excitedly and walked to the end. Chloe stood behind, following them from under the wet timber and slightly fearing that the whole thing was going to fall in her head anytime. 

Chloe could hear Benji as he called Jesse to see the extremely big fish that came out from the fishing rod, Flo and Cynthia Rose talking about the drinks they’d buy with Stacie. Lilly was twirling crazily beside Jessica and Ashley, her unmistakable red galoshes making the floor tremble upon Chloe’s head. 

And then Chloe was smiling for herself, because even though they’re clearly crazy, they’re  hers.  Her family, the family she chose for herself. 

The water’s noise made Chloe feel peaceful, the salty air miraculously helping her to breathe again, bringing back all the oxygen she thought she lost a few weeks ago. And it was only when someone stopped by her side that Chloe realized she’s wasn’t walking anymore. 

Aubrey looked at her as if she could read past head, entering her brain and reading all her thoughts. Chloe cleaned her mind before Aubrey spoke. “You don’t need to isolate yourself, you know.”

Everything was  too much.  Too many thoughts, too many feelings, too many memories. And Aubrey knew it, somehow she always did. She was there when Chloe’s life fell apart for the first time, holding Chloe when she couldn’t handle the pressure of everything. 

She was there when the long-sleeved blouses arrived, when the alcohol and the drugs came. And she doesn’t judge, Aubrey supports. She always did, with her bossy voice that might scare people away at first, but that Chloe got used to with time, listening and understanding with her way of “leaving rainbows wherever she goes”, as Aubrey said years ago. 

And even though Chloe broke the promise she made Aubrey when she told her she would never cry again, Aubrey’s still here. Firm and solid as the rocks around. 

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” Chloe points to the timber above them that still trembled with Lilly’s jumps. “We’re not a very quiet group.” 

Aubrey’s lips curved into a recognizing smile and Chloe went back to follow the way under the pier, Aubrey instantly walking by her side. They walked side by side in a comfortable silence, Aubrey giving small giggles about something happening above them. 

They reached a point where, even though the pier kept going on, there was too many rocks for them to pass, so Chloe sat down on one of them and Aubrey settled against the timber that sustain the pier. 

“Emily sent a video of Blue. Have you seen it?” She started to talk without looking directly to Chloe. Her head was down, entertained with her own fingers that curled and intertwined on her belly. 

Chloe waited until Aubrey’s eyes were on her before answering. “I didn’t even touch my phone today.” Chloe reached for her back pockets, looking for the phone. “Shit. I think I forgot it at the chalet.” 

Aubrey lets her arms fall beside her body as if they were too heavy onto her belly. “I think you should say something as soon as we get back, before she decides on not giving him back.” 

Chloe laughed ironically, crossing her arms on her chest. “She wouldn’t dare.” She smiled then, knowing her puppy is in good hands. 

Emily couldn’t come with them due to a family travel, but happily agreed on nannying Blue for a few weeks (which actually ended Chloe’s plans, since the dog was the excuse for the redhead not being able to come). Chloe didn’t realize how much she missed him. 

“I wouldn’t doubt if I were you. Emily’s nephews are obsessed with him.” Aubrey moved to sit next to Chloe. 

Chloe made a little movement to the left in order to make room for Aubrey, but the rock was smooth and wet, which made Chloe slip into the shallow water, spraying it on them both. 

Then they were laughing. A real laugh that came from deep inside of Chloe’s chest without the need of forcing it. And even though her thigh ached a bit from the impact, she was still laughing along with Aubrey when the blonde woman extended her arms and pulled Chloe up. 

“Watch the rocks, little mermaid.” Amy appeared right behind Aubrey, her heavy steps forming little waves around her naked feet. “It isn’t midday yet and you’re already on the floor?” Amy made a sigh for Bumper who walked a bit slowly than her. “We need to rush if we want to keep it up with Ginger.” 

She laughed and grabbed a beer from the plastic bag Bumper was carrying. 

The same bag that now sways almost empty in Stacie’s hand, who stops for a moment to leave it with Chloe before running towards the North Beach’s sea, followed by Ashley, Jessica and Flo. 

“Hey!” Chloe’s scream is weak given the wideness of the place, even though she yelled as loud as her throat could. “I’m not staying behind!” She says, this time running after the girls, the bad swaying crazily in her hand. 

“No shirt, ginger.” Stacie screams back at her. 

Inappropriate thoughts fill Chloe’s mind as she analyzes her body. There are dark spots throughout every centimeter of Chloe’s belly and chest, both safely covered by her shirt. There are some little scars in the skin of her inner arms too, and even though they are almost invisible now, they are still there. 

And she knows what they mean. 

Chloe can hear the laughs echoing behind her and hesitates for minute before entering the water. It was only a second, but then she feels Jesse’s arms lifting her up and the cold waves against her waist, wetting Chloe’s shorts and the hem of her shirt. 

In a second, they’re all there, none of them caring with the clearly cold water or the extremely sticky mud. Everyone just enjoying the moment,  living it. 

There’s a confusion of agitated limbs making salty water fly everywhere. There’re laughs and screams that don’t form any specific word, they’re only yelled and spread to the infinite, getting lost somewhere between Heaven and Earth. 

“Mug war!” Chloe listens Bumper’s voice above the other ones and then there’s wet sand flying everywhere, hitting her body and sticking in her hair. 

She tries to memorize this moment. Chloe’s eyes don’t focus on anyone specifically, everything is blurry due to the droplets of white foam that stops in the air for a moment only to go back where they belong. Flo screams her name, alerting her of some mug flying in her direction and Chloe jumps to the side, entering the game for the first time, even though she has been in the middle of it the whole time. 

The level of water they currently are doesn’t allow Chloe to touch the sand without making her head sink, so she holds her breath and goes down. Her body floats for a minute, her eyes are closed and the world is suddenly quiet, the noise completely muffled. Chloe’s fingers reach the mug and she grabs some, using her feet to give her impulse and then the world is loud again. 

She doesn’t choose someone to throw the wet sand at, Chloe only feels her arm shake and then her hand is empty. 

She sinks into the water again. 

_Silence_. 

She come back to the surface. 

_Screams_. 

Chloe does that again and again, countless times, being followed to all of her friends. 

_Silence. Screams. Silence. Screams._

_Silence._

It’s ironic that this same battle happens inside Chloe’s mind everyday. 

She thinks about it as Aubrey pulls her hand, taking her out of the sea. The excitement of the moment still flows through their veins, so they run faster and even faster when they spot the empty old swing chair. 

Chloe sits on the wet timber, feeling her body protest. Jesse runs to the chalet and soon returns with a guitar in hands. He sits down on the floor at Chloe’s feet with the girls and Benji, blankets that weren’t there before wrapped against their shoulders and drinks in hands. 

Amy and Bumper aren’t anywhere at sight. Aubrey lets the space beside Chloe for Stacie and smiles as she sits lazily beside Jesse. 

“Wanna share?” Stacie extends the blanket toward Chloe. “I promise to let you out if it gets too hot.” She winks then, her giggle echoing Chloe’s laugh. 

The first chords of “In My Life” by The Beatles are played at the guitar by Jesse. Chloe sings with them, but soon she gets lost between the words, distracting herself with the lines marking the timber of the swing chair. 

Chloe lets her fingers run through the lines, tracing curves and straight lines until she realizes they’re not just lines. 

They’re names. 

And dates, that fill all the seat’s extension and follow up through the timber that sustains the chain. 

Chloe lets her mind fly to the tourists that went there before them, sat where they’re sitting and maybe sang as they’re singing. She vaguely remembers leaving her name on a tree, the details of the memory a bit blurry due to the alcohol she had consumed that night. She wonders if the people that were there after her wondered who she was and why she decided to leave her name on a tree. 

When the song is finished, someone pocks her right leg and looks down to find Cynthia Rose smiling up at her. 

“You make the honors, Ginger?” She throws a stick on Chloe’s lap and Chloe quickly gets what she means. 

Chloe doesn’t ask if they want their names written there. She doesn’t question what it would mean to them, she just forces the stick repeatedly times into the timber. When she realizes, they’re all there. 

Aubrey, Amy, Stacie and Flo.

Jesse, Benji and Bumper. 

Lilly, Cynthia Rose, Jessica, Ashley. 

Emily. 

Chloe adds Blue right beside her name with a silly smile in her face, thinking about the way his white fluffy ears move when he hears his name. 

Beca’s name is the last one. 

Chloe can feel the looks burning her back as she traces each letter of her name and she knows that, if things were different, maybe Beca would be there with them. 

“There’s something missing.” Jesse takes the stick from Chloe’s hand. He has his tongue out between his lips and his eyes focused on the timber in front of him. Once he’s finished, Jesse walks back to admire his handwork and Chloe looks at the drawing beneath Beca’s name. “Our ladybug.” He smiles. 

“They say it means luck.” Chloe smiles back, a kind of smile that doesn’t really reaches her eyes. 

Everybody is quiet for a moment. 

Chloe takes the whole place in, admiring some couples spread around the beach as they watch the sun that lazily shines in the horizon. 

“Where were you?” Cynthia Rose says loudly toward the couple who walks in their direction. “We were about to leave without you guys.” She jokes. 

“Um, you know...” Amy blinks, shaking Bumper’s arms. “We were just leaving our mark around.” 

“Jesus, Amy.” Aubrey exclaims. 

“Our last day here, guys. We were  forced to leave our mark.” Bumper winks to Amy. 

Between low murmurs of “gross” they all get up slowly, heading to the chalet to get everything ready for the travel back home.

Stacie turns to Chloe. “Ready to go back to the real world?” 

“And do I have any choice?” Chloe accepts the hand Stacie offered her. 

Stacie smiles at her. A real smile, different from the smirks she’s always giving. She throws her arm around Chloe’s shoulders and together they walk to the chalet, leaving the others behind them. 

*** 

Even with the group divided in three chalets, the agitation was still big. There’s so many girls to use the bathroom and get their hairs dry, so many suitcases to take, that Chloe is surprised when she realizes everyone’s inside the van after only one hour.

Jesse drives beside Chloe, his eyes focused on the road in front of them. Her feet are up in the panel and Chloe feels the sun that just started to set glow into her eyes through her sunglasses. 

“I think Amy’s hard work left her too tired.” Cynthia Rose whispers. 

Chloe looks back and spots Amy sleeping tired against Bumper. The girls laugh at Cynthia Rose’s comment, Stacie adding something Chloe doesn’t catch right away. 

“What?” She asks. 

“I said they’ll be terribly electrical when we get to your house.” The smirk making its way back into Stacie’s face. “And you know what I mean.” 

“I just hope you all know tomorrow is Monday.” Aubrey pocks Stacie’s thigh. 

“But it’s summer, Bree!” Flo exclaims. 

Chloe points to her direction, clearly agreeing with her friend. “You guys could stay in my house.” She suggests. “I really don’t care, I even prefer you guys to stay there.” She looks toward Aubrey, giving her a half smile. “Actually, I’ve kinda been running away from silence lately.”

Aubrey turns her head to the road outside and Chloe knows she won this one. 

They’re traveling for two hours already, more two and a half hour to go and Chloe’s stomach screams for food. 

“I think it’s time for us to stop to eat something.” Jesse turns to Chloe, finding her eyes. 

She smiles. “You just read my thoughts.” 

Jesse parks the van in a restaurant in the middle of the road and everybody gets out. The air was sultry and hot inside the place, making Chloe feel suffocated. Her ears muffle completely the random conversation around her, so she finishes the food faster than usual and tells them she’d wait outside. 

Chloe sits down in a little chair outside and lights a cigarette up, feeling her muscles relax when she inhales the smoke. 

If someone’s ever told Chloe she’d go back to her addiction someday, she’d laugh in their faces and throw her hair over her shoulder. Casually smoking pot is a thing, but she, Chloe Beale, determinate the way she is, fall into temptation with her past sinners? 

Not really. 

But life has a weird way of showing Chloe she’s not immune to the relapses in the middle of the way, even though she pretends she is. 

Chloe gets up and walks back to the van slowly, absorbing the last hot rays of the sun that’s already setting between the hills in the horizon. A cool breeze comes suddenly and a blue-ish movement on her left makes her turn to that direction.

It’s been a few months since the last time she’d seen them. Maybe because Chloe purposely deviates from all the streets she knows she might find them, but there she has no choice at all. Her eyes feel watery for an instant but Chloe takes a deep controlling breath, inhaling the smoke one last time before throwing the cigarette away and walking to the flowers. 

They’re Bluebells. 

They’re Chloe’s history, the reason behind Blue’s name and Beca’s favorites. The quantity of memories they bring Chloe are countless and they arrive with such force she has to use her arms for support so she doesn’t fall. 

Someone screams her name distantly, but Chloe doesn’t listen clarity, she just gets up and follows back to the van with some purple-blueish flowers in hands. She reaches the passenger seat and sleep comes to her quickly. Chloe only wakes up once they’re at her front door.

*** 

Everyone’s spread around Chloe’s big living room. There’s some food, excited conversations and loud music impeding Chloe to stay alone with her thoughts. 

Amy and Bumper left with Benji and Lilly, but the rest of the girls and Jesse are still there. Chloe’d have her friends close for the night, a full house for breakfast and probably Aubrey or Stacie to keep her company the following days. 

As if they left Chloe alone for one day. 

Jessica and Ashley laugh loudly beside Chloe, listening to Flo’s story about a creepy ritual from her maternal city. Cynthia Rose and Stacie are in the kitchen making the second jar of margarita and Aubrey is sitting in front of Chloe, her attention focused on something Jesse’s saying. 

As Chloe tries to pay attention what Flo’s saying, making random comments that clearly doesn’t match the story, she gets up to put the flowers forgotten in a corner into some water.

And then the doorbell rings. 

Jesse turns to Chloe with a playful smile. “I told you Amy would regret leaving.” 

Chloe gets up and follows to the door. 

Darkness fills the whole street, turning the trees into creepy ones, gently swaying with the wind, just like in horror movies. Chloe needs to blink countless times for her eyes to adjust to the low light and maybe that’s why she doesn’t recognize the figure in front of her. 

Once she does though, Chloe freezes. 

Theo doesn’t look like he knows how to act either. His arm extends until he reaches the back of his head and he looks away many times, looking to anything hidden in the shadows in an obvious attempt to avoid Chloe’s eyes. 

“Hey, Chloe.” Theo looks to the floor and keeps going when he realizes Chloe didn’t say anything. “I know we’re not exactly friends, but I’d like to know if Beca’s here?”

Chloe looks at him hardly and the disbelief in her eyes is so incredibly big Theo takes a step back, probably regretting his decision of stoping by. 

“Who’s that, Chlo?” 

Chloe’s listen to steps behind her and only when Jesse whispers he’ll take care of it and Aubrey touches her shoulder that Chloe realizes she’s paralyzed, one hand still grabbing the door handle and the other smacking the flowers forcefully. 

Aubrey guides her to the couch where she was sat beside Jesse. “I’m gonna get you some water.” She says in a quiet tone and walks away, the girls suddenly in a mortal silence. 

Stacie realizes the uncomfortable situation and tilts her body towards Chloe, trying to break the ice. “The flowers are beautiful, Chlo.” 

The girls murmur in agreement.

Aubrey’s back with a glass of water and Chloe wonders if any of them realized all the flowers have some petals missing.


	3. III - Beca

Beca lifts her head from the toilet and uses both her hands for support. Chloe’s hand goes up and down her back while the other holds Beca’s hair back, so the brown curls won’t fall over her eyes. 

“There’s nothing more to come out, Becs.” Chloe assures, her hand on Beca’s back never stopping. “You said you didn’t eat a lot yesterday, so there’s nothing in your stomach anymore. You can use the bowl I put next your bed, don’t need to feel ashamed.” 

She can only groan. 

She hates that Chloe has to see her like that. She tried to make it to the bathroom without being loud so she wouldn’t wake Chloe, but Beca blinked and she was there, she always is. 

Because it’s Chloe, the girl who puts other’s necessities above her own. 

And she never leaves. Chloe stays with Beca while she brushes her teeth forcefully, trying to get the taste of bile out of her mouth and when Beca lies down.

Chloe makes sure Beca is comfortable between the sheets before she puts a black overcoat over her pajamas and asks Beca, “Do you think you can stay awake for a few more minutes?” 

“Where are you going?” Beca’s voice sound broken and tired, nearly something beneath a whisper. 

Chloe gives a gentle smile, almost too gentle, too  _Chloe,_ to which Beca would certainly roll her eyes at if she were in normal conditions. 

“I’ll be right back, Bec.” Chloe says before she opens the door and disappears into the shadows filling the corridor. 

Beca rolls onto the bed until she’s in a fetal position, apparently the only position able to make the strong colics feel a bit better. She stares at the little neon stars she’s glued to her side of the room when she first arrived at Barden, two years ago. 

She’s counted them countless times before, when she was too drunk for her brain to turn off or simply when she couldn’t sleep. Beca counts the stars again, always trying to find a different number as if she left a tiny one forgotten, but she always stops at thirty-one. 

On the first months after her parents divorce Beca couldn’t sleep without the corridor’s light on that used to shine beneath her bedroom’s door, warning her that her mom was still up. It felt like the shadows would swallow Beca in the moment her mom’s steps showed up and took the light away with them. Beca used to hold on tight to an old pink bunny she insisted on carry around since she was three. She stayed there, pocking the bunny’s fluffy ears until sleep finally arrived for her. 

But it changed drastically when Beca moved away, leaving the bunny behind. Without the bunny and sleeping in a different floor than her mom, Beca needed to find something else to calm her down. And it was the little stars she accidentally found in a store during a walk with her father. Beca just held onto them, like desperate people do when they’re falling.

On the same year, she and her mom went to a family reunion and since they were the first ones to arrive to the big house, Beca could sleep in a room for herself. She turned onto the bed, staring at the light shining from beneath the door and spotted a bunny that looked a lot like her old one. The same stars Beca had in her room shined, meticulously glued into the walls. 

The way Beca thought she couldn’t sleep without the light from beneath the door and then without the old bunny, collated to the angst she feels now when she has to sleep without the stupid stars, look like they are fears from a past life, that belongs to another Beca. 

Not her. 

On that moment, Beca felt as if the past had intertwined with the present. 

It made her think how easy it is for things to be replaced in life. You loose something and then you feel sad about it, cry for maybe too many days, thinking how it’ll be possible for you to keep being yourself. But then something else arrives, maybe the most unexpected one, and fills the hole that stood. And you stop feeling weird. 

When Chloe returns, Beca is one step away from falling asleep but she still registers the redhead putting something into her mouth before Beca’s mind takes her to a dreamless darkness. 

*** 

Beca wakes up to a sunny autumn day. Her eyes take a minute to adjust to the light filling the room and she blinks many times, trying to focus. She grabs her phone and finds a few unread messages.

**Jesse Swanson**

_Mornin bday girl_

_R u ok? Chloe said u were sick_

_Becaaaaw_

_U can’t die on ur own bday_

_Text once ur awake_

Beca rolls her eyes and types a quick answer. 

**Beca Mitchell**

_I’m alive, you dumbass._

**Jesse Swanson**

_Thank god._

_Seriously now, r u ok? Feelin anything?_

**Beca Mitchell**

_I’m fine. Just got nauseous last night._

**Jesse Swanson**

_If u say so. Can u meet me in the campus?_

Beca checks the time before answering Jesse, feeling surprised it’ just eleven in the morning. 

**Beca Mitchell**

_I’ll be there in 20._

She takes her time reading the birthday texts the girls sent her earlier, but deep inside Beca wonders how on Earth anyone (except Chloe) would be awake eight in the morning in a fucking Saturday. 

When Beca gets out of the bathroom after taking a shower, she realizes a pink post-it on her nightstand with Chloe’s handwriting on it. 

_“Happy birthday, Deejay Bee! Hope you’re feeling better and I promise to see you later. Enjoy the snack! Love, Chloe.”_

Beca smiles to herself and grabs the pack of Cheetos Chloe left her, before putting her hair back in a ponytail and leaving to meet Jesse. 

There’re less students around on the weekends, which makes it easier for Beca to spot Jesse, who is standing under a tree looking down at his phone.

Once he hears Beca arriving, Jesse lifts his head and smiles, involving Beca in a bear hug. “Happy birthday!” He says a bit too excitedly and twirls the girl in his arms so Beca’s feet don’t touch the floor. 

Beca shrugs, her belly rolling and for a moment she thinks she might puke again. “Yeah, don’t do that.” She brigs her hand to her temple, her head still spinning. 

“Oh, sorry.” Jesse apologies. “Can I take you out to lunch today?” 

“Yeah, it sounds great. I don’t have anything planned anyway.” Beca walks side by side with Jesse as he leads her to his car. “Since you don’t buy a cake and invites everybody around like you did last year, it’s fine. You know how I feel about birthdays.” 

Jesse laughs. “It wasn’t everybody, Becaw. Only the girls were there.”

Beca only rolls her eyes as she slides onto the passenger seat. 

Jesse takes her to a little restaurant near the campus. The drives barely took ten minutes, which had Beca wondering why they didn’t just walk there, but she lets the thought fly out of her mind when they enter the place and take their seats, facing each other. 

When the waiter leaves after they ordered their food, Jesse looks firmly at her. Amusement clearly fills his eyes and then Beca knows what’s coming. “Are you really okay?” He asks. 

Beca breathes slowly, her left hand tapping on the table uncontrollably. “I’m fine, Jesse. I told you already, I just got sick, which is normal... you know.” 

“I know. I meant emotionally, Bec.”

Beca fills her chest with all the air she can before starting to tell Jesse about how she feels internally. All those complicated feelings she’s been dealing with since she found out about the pregnancy. “Honestly? I don’t know, Jesse.” Her voice cracks and she warns herself not to cry, not now. Beca cleans her throat. “I called Theo last week.” 

Jesse frowns lightly. “You told him?” Beca nods. “What did he say?” 

“He said I can take care of it myself.” She stops for a while, their conversation surrounded by a uncomfortable silence. “Which is okay, too, I guess.”

Jesse’s expression changes into a mix of anger, sadness and something else. He looks furious and Beca’s afraid he might break something. “What do you mean it’s  _okay_ ,  Beca? You didn’t make the baby with your fingers.” 

Beca feels impatient, already regretting this conversation. “I can’t force him to assume the child, dude. I’m not even sure Iwanna keep it.” 

“You mean  _abortion_?” 

A bittersweet feeling grows in Beca’s stomach and for a moment she thinks she’ll get sick again. The way Jesse said that word with such disgust made something crack inside of her. “I’m not aborting, Jesse. I’m thinking about adoption.” 

“Oh.” It’s all Jesse says, but he looks disappointed, sad in a way. As if he wanted Beca to keep the baby so much it would change his world if she actually does. 

She decides on giving him a sad smile, her sarcasm speaking away for her. “I don’t think I would do a good job anyway.” 

He reaches out and touches her hand tenderly and carefully, as if he’s afraid Beca’s gonna to crash any moment. 

Which maybe she will. 

“You would be an amazing mom, Becs.”

And somehow that comment brings tears to Beca’s eyes, makes her feel sad too, impotent someway. 

“You don’t have to say that.” She discretely blinks the tears away. “And please, don’t tell anyone.” 

Jesse looks like he’s about to say something else, but then changes his mind on the last minute. “Who knows?” 

“Only the people who were there when I found out.” She tells him. “I didn’t tell anybody else. I don’t even know how to.” 

The day Beca found out she was pregnant was the most terrifying day of her life. She will never forget that feeling of having her world completely smacked and thrown away, all because of two pink lines.

Jesse was in her room waiting for her to come out because they were going to a stupid College party. Stacie was there too. And Amy and Cynthia Rose. 

They didn’t know what she was doing. They hadn’t any idea of the torment happening inside Beca’s head, who was standing a few feet and a shut door away from them. 

When Beca opened the door with the pregnancy test in hand, too chocked to cry, they all hugged her and told her everything’s going to be fine. 

That’s what they always say, isn’t it? 

Beca only asked them not to tell anybody. 

And they didn’t. 

“Well, even if you don’t tell them,” Jesse says, referring to the girls. He points to Beca’s belly. “Time certainly will.” 

She rolls her eyes once more.

When they finish their food, Beca’s being guided out to the car again. “I wanna take you somewhere, is that okay?” Beca gives Jesse a look that has him laughing again. “I just wanna make something cool for you, Becs. It’s your birthday.” 

“You know I don’t like birthdays.” Jesse’s about to insist when Beca speaks again, stopping him. “Just drive before I change my mind.” 

Beca doesn’t mean to sound ungrateful, she really doesn’t. But she can’t help the bittersweet feeling that comes every year around her birthday, and specially this one, given Beca’s currently unwanted situation. 

She looks out of the window while Jesse drives. The car filled with silence, except from the low country music coming from the radio. 

And that’s the way they spend the next half hour, before Jesse parks his car in front of a lot of trees. 

They get out of the car and Beca can read a sigh that tells her they are at the Constitution Lakes, which is weird because she never heard anything about that place before. 

Jesse walks side by side with Beca, none of them saying anything. There are crickets singing happily and birds flying from tree to tree, birds that might have come from a distant place to which Beca’s heard before. 

“Look,” Jesse starts when they reach a timber path. “This wasn’t my idea.” 

Beca frowns and before she can question anything, the girls jump in front of her and she’s hearing a mix of “surprise” and “happy birthday” being yelled at her and a bunch of blue balloons finding its way to her hand. 

And then Beca’s being involved in kisses and hugs that last way too far for her taste, hearing her best friends whispering good wishes into her ear. 

When she spots Chloe approaching her, holding a single white balloon, Beca feels as if the rest of the world is suddenly out of focus and the spotlight is shining bright on Chloe’s pale skin. She thinks Chloe looks breathtaking in her light-brown dress, and the thought has Beca so incredibly surprised she shakes her head in an attempt to make it fly away from her mind. 

The  “happy birthday, Bec!” is happily murmured into her neck as Chloe buries her head there and weirdly enough, Beca doesn’t want to pull away. 

She doesn’t want to, but she ends up doing just that, using both her arms to gentle push Chloe away from her body as she looks down to try and make the slight blush disappear from her face. 

“The circus is heading to the Doll’s Head Trail, pitches.” Amy screams, pointing to the trail with her thumb. “And Jesse.” She adds, turning around and walking towards a big tree. 

“Wow, I didn’t expect that.” Jesse exclaims, eyes fixed on the hidden path in front of them. “You think you can do it?” He turns to Beca, his eyebrows lifted up in an exaggerated way.

And only then Beca realizes what they have to do to enter the damn trail. “You want me to  _climb_ this fallen tree?” She says, referring to the big tree blocking the path. 

“Why Beca wouldn’t be able to climb it?” Aubrey suddenly asks, her eyes fixed on Jesse as she talks. 

It looks like Jesse is about to say something else, but a general look to the Bella’s faces apparently makes him change his mind and then his attention is fully focused on Beca. 

Chloe’s face looks as if she’s missed a part of the conversation. Half of the Bellas look confused as well, and Beca’s face changes when realization reaches her. 

They don’t know. 

Beca crosses her arms on her chest trying to protect herself, even though she has no idea what from. “Yeah, I can totally do it.”

Cynthia Rose and Stacie sigh, their faces flushed as if they’ve been holding their breaths for a long time. 

“Okay.” Jesse whispers, briefly glancing at Beca’s face, before lifting his foot up onto the fallen tree. 

He makes it quick and Beca follows right after him, stepping up on the trunk and using her arms to give her strength. Jesse extends both his arms, touching Beca’s waist and placing her feet on the ground too delicately, as if she’s a doll about to break. 

Everyone is beside them in a blink of eyes, ready to follow the trail. 

The dry leaves are noisy beneath Beca’s feet as she walk. There are trees on each side of the path, half inclined towards the center, as a failed attempt to get closer to one another. 

For a few seconds, nothing appears. They are surrounded by a dark forest where the foliage seems to have a life of its own. The sky suddenly splits and a storm seems to be on its way. The forest gets even darker and Beca suddenly wonders if there's any cell phone signal around because if anything happens to them, there's no way anyone can find them there. 

Some old electronics appear, telephone ropes, crucifixes hanging randomly between the twisted trunks. 

And then, dolls. 

Doll arms, doll heads, doll legs. 

It’s an amount of trash made hauntingly human, with quotes and song lyrics or whatever else they wanted to write and Beca faces each one of them, trying to understand them, decipher the minds of the many artists who created them. 

The messages they wanted to pass, what they were trying to criticize.

There’s at least four doll heads inside old television frames, probably criticizing the way people are alienated nowadays.

Someone’s painted Sponge Bob in an old trunk, the colors almost faded away making it look creepy enough so Beca feels shivers along her body. 

There’s a big metal circling a fallen trunk. Beca approaches it, trying to read the words written in there more clearly. 

_“With this ring..._ _”_ and then the sentence stops there, or nature grew big enough to cover up the rest of it. Any way, Beca thinks it is the best piece of art in the trail. That’s the sentence many people say and most of times never do as promised, no matter which words they say next.

Beca takes out one of her rings and places behind the metal, next to the old doll head placed there. When she turns around, Chloe smiles at her. 

A kind of smile that reaches her eyes and lights up her whole face. Beca smiles back. 

"That one looks like a baby coming out of a vagina." Amy points to a doll's head buried between the trunks of two intersecting trees. 

"Jesus, Amy." Aubrey complains while the others laugh. 

In that moment, Beca feels her chest filled with joy and it’s so overwhelming she feels like crying. 

Because she is not used to it.

Beca isn’t used to feel as somebody else cares for her, to feel  _loved_.  And it kind of scares her, because she never realized how much she needed it. But a look around her is enough to tell: her friends are there for her. 

They’re there to try and make that day Beca hates so much a little brighter. And she doesn’t have enough words to say how thankful she is for having them.

It’s only a few minutes later that Beca realizes Chloe’s not anywhere in sight. She looks around once more to make sure and when she can’t find the redhead, she decides that Chloe might have kept walking through the trail. 

Beca slowly walks away and in the minute she can’t see her friends anymore, she fears she’s lost.

Inside the context of darkening forests where Beca stumbles to old, dirty pieces of doll everywhere and one gray squirrel after the next, everything is creepy as hell. 

There’re doll arms buried into the grass like a dead body climbing up from inside the earth, as if they’re imploring Beca to not leave them behind. 

One of the balloons Beca’s carrying gets stuck between the trunks. She hears the metals around bumping onto each other and for a moment she thinks those earth-children are screaming in agony.

Then she comes upon a beautiful boardwalk, finally a breath of fresh air. 

Chloe is sitting at the middle of it, the white balloon still in one hand and a cigarette in the other. 

Beca walks toward her and pocks Chloe’s back with her shoe. “You shouldn’t be so close to the water.” She says, finding a spot to carefully sit down by Chloe’s side. “There might be snakes around.” 

Chloe inhales the cigarette before letting the smoke out of her mouth slowly. “Then you’re risking yourself as much as I am.” She shoots back, eyes glued to the lake in front of them. 

Beca smirks. “Smart ass.” 

She then lets her eyes go down, observing the cord that keeps the white balloon from flying away between Chloe’s fingers. There’s a little card in the end, with one single word written on it. 

Violet. 

“Can you pass me that?” Beca asks, pointing to the cigarette. 

Chloe lifts her eyebrows in surprise, but hands the cigarette to Beca. 

Once the cigarette is placed between her fingers, Beca freezes. She has absolutely no idea of why she asked for it, but she’s sure that’s something she _shouldn’t_ be doing. Thankfully, Chloe’s speaking again before she has the opportunity to think about it. 

“My sister’s birthday was two days ago.” Chloe’s voice is quiet and it looks like she’s not talking to anybody specifically. Her face seems lost and she sounds breathless.

It’s Beca’s turn to be surprised. “I didn’t know you have a sister.” 

The smile Chloe gives her is sad, way too different than the ones her face is always covered with. “She’s dead.” 

“Chloe, I’m so sorry.” It’s all Beca can say because she somehow feels like she’s lost her voice somewhere deep inside her. 

“It’s okay. It was years ago.” Chloe sniffles. “I always send a white balloon away around this time of the year... I don’t know what for, though. I think I just want to show the universe that even though it took my sister away from me, I didn’t forget her.” 

“Come here.” Beca whispers, bringing Chloe’s body closer to hers.

And when Beca involves Chloe’s body with her arms, she makes a silent promise inside her head to never break this girl’s heart. 

Chloe sets the single balloon free and Beca does the same with her blue ones. 

“You don’t need that.” Chloe sighs, extending her hand towards the forgotten cigarette burning in Beca’s hand.

Beca’s body reacts before her mind does, bringing her hand backwards and away from Chloe’s reach. “Neither do you.” 

Amy’s voice echoes through the air, reaching Beca’s ears. “That was a bit Blair Witch-y.” 

“That was way worse than Blair Witch, Amy.” Aubrey shoots back, her footsteps reaching the beginning of the boardwalk. 

When Beca throws the cigarette to the lake, Chloe’s hand touches her own, timidly lacing their fingers together. 

And Beca thinks it feels good. 

They sit together, hearing their friends laughing while the balloons reach Heaven and the cigarette sinks to the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading 🥰


	4. IV - Chloe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I realized you guys are confused with the story and I decided on telling you what’s happening here.
> 
> Beca and Chloe’s point of views are situated in different times of the story: one is in the present, while the other is in the past. I think it will be fun letting you guys find out which one is in the past and which one is in the present (even though I think it’s quite obvious), so I’m not telling you. 
> 
> Eventually, both povs will meet and you’ll understand everything, pinky promise ❤️
> 
> I think it would be interesting for you to pay attention to everything that happens in this story, too. Nothing is here just because, there’s a reason behind most of the things the girls do and a relation between past and present. 
> 
> It’s going to be fun to see your theories about what’s happening!
> 
> Thank you for reading, always ❤️

Do you know that moment between awake and asleep, when you know your brain is lazily waking up but your body doesn’t really want to? That moment you can hear the sounds around you, smell the air filling your room and feel the sheets comfortably embracing your body, but your eyes are still closed and the dreams still inside your mind?

Chloe holds on to moments like this for dear life. She has been doing it for the past four weeks, afraid to face the real world and preferring to stay in the cool space of her dreams and hopes, a place where she knows nothing bad will happen to her. A place that’s safe and warm, way too different than the cold and rough world she has been waking up to, even though it’s summer. 

Right now, though, Chloe opens her eyes fast and surely, trying to not think about the weird dream the universe sent her mind. 

It’s hard enough to face her problems and fears everyday, she doesn’t have to worry about them in her sleep as well. 

She doesn’t want to.

And it’s summer. Chloe should be happy and loving life harder than ever, but for the first time in forever she doesn’t have any plans.

Either for summer or anything that comes afterwards.

She used to love summers. 

The vibrant colors the season bring to nature and people’s clothes, the feeling of freedom and the way she felt as she was invincible. 

Chloe loved hearing the children’s giggles and seeing happiness glowing in people’s faces. She loved how the clear, blue sky would suddenly turn into a storm and the way she could smell the rain before if fell in heavy hot droplets on her hair.

Funnily enough, the little ray of sunshine escaping between the curtains makes her groan loudly, leaving the bed to fully block it and cursing mentally for forgetting to close the window last night. 

She has no idea what day or time it is, but Blue is crazily scratching her bedroom door. Chloe walks to the door and lets the dog in. 

“Hey, little guy.” She greets, kneeling down to caress his fluffy head. 

Blue stays up in his back paws and stretches himself in Chloe’s legs, his tail never stops moving. 

She stretches her back, touching her aching muscles. It surely feels different than sleeping in her own room, but that’s a pleasure Chloe doesn’t give herself lately.

She holds the dog in her arms and takes a step forward to go back to bed, but a laugh sounding from the living room makes her turn around and walk slowly out of the guest room. 

The living room is too bright and Chloe has to blink several times to try and make her eyes adjust to the new amount of light. Once her eyes take the space of her, she spots Aubrey and Jesse sitting on the couch. 

Blue instantly jumps out of Chloe’s hold and runs toward Jesse. Aubrey walks to Chloe and takes her hand, guiding the redhead to the kitchen.

“Hi.” She hugs Chloe tightly. “How are you?” 

Chloe takes too long to come back to her senses. Her eyes are still heavy with sleep and her mind still trying to understand what her best friend is doing in her house. With Jesse. 

“Um, fine?” She untangles herself from Aubrey’s hold and takes a step back, bringing a hand up to take a few messy curls away from her forehead. 

“Okay.” Aubrey says slowly, guiding Chloe again to sit down on a chair. “I cooked some breakfast.”

She places a few pancakes and waffles in front of Chloe, as well as a cup of coffee and some french toasts. 

“You didn’t have to, Bree.” Chloe reaches out to squeeze Aubrey’s hand. “Thank you.” 

“No problem.” Aubrey smiles down at her. “Can we go out today?” 

Chloe looks at Aubrey as the cup of coffee reaches her lips, hoping her best friend to see the answer through her eyes. “Where do you wanna go?” She asks, not really wanting to leave her house. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Aubrey’s fingers twist and curl nervously. “I just... don’t want you to stay in forever. I hate to see you like this, Chlo.”

Chloe rolls her eyes, regretting the decision to give Aubrey a copy of the damn key to her house. “It’s not going to be forever, but it’ll take time for me to... adjust to everything again.” Her voice is low and broken and Chloe hates the sad look Aubrey gives her.

“I know, Chlo. I  _really_ do.” Aubrey kneels down in front of Chloe, reaching out to hold both her hands. “I don’t want to compare, but it’s not being exactly easy for me either.”

Chloe feels something happen inside her head, something weird and extremely strong that brings her to the past where she’s sure Aubrey had said the very same words to her. 

She sees herself on the bathroom floor. She was hopeless, sobbing uncontrollably and wondering how was is possible all those tears to have a place inside her. 

Aubrey was there, too. Unable to blink her tears away at the sight of her best friend falling apart like that, but steady and strong. She took Chloe’s hands in hers, she cleaned Chloe’s skin and told her everything was going to be fine. 

That’s a part within Chloe that is fragile and breakable and the only one she’s ever allowed to see it is Aubrey. For everyone else, Chloe is the walking sunshine, always happy, never insecure. She’s the one people always ask, “How is it possible to be happy all the time?” 

_I don’t know_ , she wants to say. 

_I’m not_.

“Things will be different soon.” Aubrey whispered, her fingers carefully stroking Chloe’s curls. “We’ll be in College in three years. It’ll pass in a blink of eyes. I promise you.” 

And the years really flew by. 

But right now, past-Chloe and present-Chloe are one single person and she can’t tell which one is real. 

It has been happening a lot lately and she’s never ready for this weird feeling of dé-jà vu that fills her, the most terrible kind of it. 

It all feels almost the same, similar but somehow different.

Stronger. 

The way Chloe counts her heartbeats to make sure she’s still here, maybe at edge of falling apart once more, but still warm and breathing. Aubrey’s hands feel heavy atop hers, making Chloe remember the truth of knowing that nothing in this world is permanent, neither the happy things or the sad ones. 

And it’s so overwhelming she sees herself pushing her best friend away, both her hands gently touching Aubrey’s shoulders. 

But Aubrey’s hopeful face makes Chloe want to cross her fingers once more and hope the best is yet to come, even though her worn, tired heart can’t believe in that possibility. 

Chloe smiles. 

Kind of.

“Okay.” She whispers. “We can go out.” 

***

Other than the four days they spent on Tybee, Chloe hasn’t really left her house since they came back from the Camp almost five weeks ago.

There’s no more excitement on walking Blue in the mornings and pass through all those so painfully places she remembers from when she was a kid running down the street to pick oranges with her grandmother and from the very recent memories that feel like years ago.

But the moment she leaves the car and walks through the sidewalk with Aubrey, feeling the busy avenue’s wind messing her hair and tickling her neck, she feels thankful she left her house. 

Chloe loved walking through busy places. She used to pay attention to all those unknown faces, wondering what were their stories, what was happening in their lives. If they were as complicated as she was.

As hurt as she was. Is.

But the moments she loved the most were watching them in situations of pure, genuine happiness. Chloe watched group of friends laughing loud and free, a couple sharing sweet smiles as they walked with their newborn for the first time, two best friends dancing in the rain and so many more moments. Moments from people Chloe had no idea who they were and who had no idea they were being watched.

Those were the times Chloe felt as she knew happiness, not because she’s felt it herself, but because she’s  _seen_ it. 

It’s incredibly ironic to think when she finally found it, the universe took it away from her. 

Abrupt and roughly so. 

Aubrey meant it when she said she didn’t know where to go. They walk for a long time until they reach a little park with a few cute benches around. They find one empty and sit down side by side, talking about nothing and everything. 

Except for them and an old man walking his dog, the park it’s empty. There are birds coming and going, singing happily to one another. The breeze isn’t too hot and Chloe thinks it feels nice. 

It feels nice to be by her best friend side for the first time since a very long time. But Chloe realizes that just like the first time, what brought them together is tragedy. An infinity of tangled ropes life decided to throw on them, leaving both messy and broken.

So Chloe tells Aubrey that. 

“That’s not true, Chlo.” Aubrey answers, her brows frowned. “We’ve always been close. We always hang out together before everything happened. I think tragedy just brought us even closer, transformed you in the only person I really trust.” 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Chloe says, but her voice seems distant, like she wasn’t really thinking about what to say. 

Silence falls over them once more. Only this time isn’t the comfortable kind of silence, but a heavy one that seems to swallow them both and turn the light park into scary shadows. The kind of silence that makes Chloe  think and brings tears to her eyes and she wants so desperately to say something, anything to change the subject, but her mind is blank. It’s not like there’s anything happening in her life lately, anyway. 

But thankfully, Aubrey seems to feel the same way and she’s suddenly speaking again. “My dad came to visit yesterday.” 

And those words lighted Chloe up, made her feel a bit of happiness again, because she knows how much her friend misses her dad. “Oh my god, Bree! I’m so happy to hear that!”

Aubrey smiles and looks down at her hands. “Yeah. But he didn’t stay long, you know how my dad is.” 

Chloe giggles at that because she does know how Mr. Posen is. She remembers how funny he is and how happy Aubrey was for having him at home on the few weekends he was free from his job. 

There is one specific memory from when they were little and Chloe remembers Mr. Posen spent weeks building a treehouse for Aubrey on their backyard. When it was finished, he called for them who were in the living room and the girls rushed outside. He asked them to climb the stairs and Chloe still can feel the smell of the fresh painting on the timber walls. 

Mr. Posen made a mural with all of Aubrey’s favorite things. From music notes to all of the Disney princesses and the memory of it all is so strong and real Chloe feels like crying again. 

And she ends up doing just that, lifting her hand to wipe her nose and then looking down again, touching the ring she has on her index finger. She twirls it over and over again, until it cuts her skin. 

But she doesn’t care anymore, about anything. 

Aubrey follows her eyes and Chloe hear her breath of surprise when she spots the ring on her finger. 

The ring she took back from the Doll’s Head Trail.

“Oh, Chloe...” 

But hearing her best friend’s voice only makes the tears fall faster.

“I’m sorry.” Chloe whispers, but her voice waves and she needs to clean her throat and try again. “I just...” She lifts both her hands to pull at her hair angrily, her eyes shutting forcefully. “God, I hate myself for being so sentimental and for letting everything affect me, for everything making me feel like crying. I just wanted to be like a rock without caring and with zero feelings. It would be... just easier, you know.”

“Chloe, stop.” Aubrey takes her hands from where they were tangled in her hard and squeezes, wanting Chloe to look at her. “Nobody is blaming you for your feelings. And it’s not ‘everything’ that affects you. The last month has been a rollercoaster to us all, the things that happened was abrupt and it hurt as hell.” She reaches out until she’s touching Chloe’s chin and lifting her head. “Unfortunately, you’re not a rock and you do have feelings. I know you’re  _not_ okay right now and I’m here to remind you that it’s okay to be strong and fall apart. You’re a human, Chlo.” 

“It’s just...  _so hard_.” 

Chloe feels her best friend’s arms around her as she breaks down once more. 

But she’s going to be fine, she tells herself. 

There’s a tomorrow to come and another tomorrow yet, and in one of them Chloe will wake up and feel fine again. 

She won’t die. 

It will only hurt as hell. 

***

By the time Chloe enters her house, the sun is already gone. Aubrey asked if she wanted her to stay, but Chloe insisted her friend to go back to her house.

She didn’t need her.

What a liar. 

Chloe needs Aubrey more than anything. But there’s nothing she hates more than bother people, and even if Aubrey suggested herself, Chloe just knows it would be better for her to go back to her place. 

After all, they say there’s no place like home. Right? 

Wrong. 

Chloe’s home is the very last place she wants to be right now. She isn’t even sure she has a home anymore. 

And when Blue settles against her neck when her head hits the pillow, the one and only thing she has been avoiding to think about the whole day fills her mind. 

Beca visited Chloe’s dreams last night. 

Her eyes were sparkling and she was laughing so hard that her head tilted back. 

She pointed to the three white balloons Chloe was holding. 

“Two.” Beca whispered. “You should let only two go.” 


	5. V - Beca

** Jesse Swanson **

_ R u sure u don’t want me to go with u?  _

Beca looks down at her phone screen, her fingers moving to type on the keyboard, only to delete her words and start again. 

** Beca Mitchell  **

_No, dude. I’m already on my way_.

She rereads her text after she sends it and feels a knot down on her stomach, not wanting to sound rude or ungrateful for her friend to try to help her. 

** Beca Mitchell **

_ Thank you anyway. _

She decides it’s enough. But it’s not like Jesse would be mad at her -they’ve known each other long enough for him to be able to tell exactly who she is and how is her personality, but Beca just wanted to make sure. 

Beca settles down against the uncomfortable chair on the reception and waits. It’s not like she’s got that many things to do, anyway.

For as long as Beca can remember, she has never been one to pay attention to her surroundings, preferring to close herself in her own musical bubble and avoid the outsiders. This time wouldn’t be different if she hadn’t forgotten the damn headphones. 

There are kids everywhere.

Some toddlers running away and babies being fed. There are screams and cries and moms’ voices calming their children down. 

One look to her side and Beca’s eyes land on a baby girl. Her mother looks down at her little face while breastfeeding her baby and her look is so filled with love it makes Beca feel sick.

Because she doesn’t see herself like that in the future. It’s hard to believe she’s growing a  _ human  _ inside of her, specially when it wasn’t planned or expected. 

Especially when the child’s father won’t assume them, especially when she feels so ashamed she can’t even tell her best friend about it.

One of her hands falls to her belly unconsciously. 

She isn’t showing yet. There’s not even the start of a curve there, but it doesn’t change the fact Beca  _knows_ there’s a teeny tiny someone there. 

“You should sleep as much as possible now.” She hears the woman beside her saying in a tired, airy voice. “After your baby is born that will be so rare.” The woman laughs and Beca can’t do anything but nod and give her a half smile back. 

“What is her name?” Beca asks, head pointing to the little girl in a blue dress embraced by her mom’s arms. 

“ Clary. Short for Clarissa.” The woman answers, her eyes glued to her daughter as if she still can’t believe she’s there. “And I’m Marin.” 

“Uh, Beca.” Beca says awkwardly, lifting one of her hands to run her fingers through her hair and the other to shake Marin’s. 

“Nice to meet you, Beca.” Marin’s pink lips curve up in a smile. “Do you have any names yet?” 

Beca shrugs, uncomfortable with the conversation. “Uh, I think- I mean, no.” She says in a rush, blushing furiously when she finishes the small sentence. “It’s my very first ultrasound.” 

“Yeah, I thought so. You seem nervous.” Marin suggests and Beca nods. “I was very nervous at the beginning, too. But I’ll share something with you: whenever I felt too insecure or anxious about mothering my unborn baby girl, I would write a letter to her. It doesn’t matter what you talk about, just put all of yours insecurities on a paper as if you’re talking to your baby. It helps  so much. Really, write to your baby.” Marin finishes, the smile never leaving her face. “You can even give them to your child when they’re old enough to understand.” 

That’s not something Beca thought about. She can barely accept the fact she’s pregnant, how on Earth would writing to the baby help her in anything?

It must be the different situations, she decides. Marin’s baby was probably planned beforehand, she probably has a house and a significant othet and enough money to raise her daughter, while Beca... well. She doesn’t have any of that. 

So she’s beyond thankful when the Doctor calls her name and she sees herself saying her goodbyes to the woman, even though this light relief is quickly replaced by pure panic the minute she enters the room.

The Doctor seems to feel it because she runs to the interruptor and turns the light on and Beca’s faced with a black woman. Her dark chocolate eyes reflect nothing but empathy and Beca feels incredibly surprised for the serene atmosphere she suddenly slides into.

“Good afternoon, Miss Mitchell.” The Doctor gives her a kind smile. “How are you feeling?”

Beca’s eyes fixate on everything in the room but the Doctor’s eyes. “Beca is fine.” She breathes out in a very low voice. “And I’m good.” 

The Doctor moves around the room so she’s standing next to a white stretcher. “That’s great! You can call me Dr. Gwen.” She pauses then, reaching out to the stretcher to place a long paper on it. “I can see that you’re very tense, so I’ll explain everything we’re about to do.”

“Okay.” 

“So, you’re going to lay down here on your back and I’ll place a fine layer of ultrasound gel on your belly so we can start.” Dr. Gwen walks around the stretcher so she’s in front of Beca. “It may be a little cold, but it’ll be a hundred percent painless.”

“Okay.” Beca repeats, because she feels as if she has no words inside her brain anymore.

“Should we get started, then?” Dr. Gwen suggests with that kind smile of hers. 

Beca takes her shoes off and steps onto the stretcher, laying on her back with her shirt up as the Doctor told her to. She feels the woman placing a white towel on the hem of her jeans and then the gel comes. Her breath catches and her muscles contract. 

The gel is so fucking cold. 

She hears Dr. Gwen giggling and a “told you so” being talked quietly. Beca glances at the blank, empty monitor before turning her head to the other side, not wanting to see what is going to appear there.

Beca's nervous hands occupy themselves by tearing pieces of the paper beneath her body, her fast and shallow breath being the only sound filling the room. 

For a few minutes, nothing happens. 

There's only the ultrasound device gliding over the gel on her belly and the incessant  _beep beep_ of the monitor. Beca's eyes are tightly closed, for a reason she doesn't even know herself. As if the darkness would help her face the heavy silence that brings a strange sound to her ear. 

Then Dr. Gwen changes the movements of her hands and a sound appears.

Beats.

Fast, strong beats that look like a hundred drums being played at the same time.

Beca opens her eyes in a flash.

These are not simple beats.

They're  _heartbeats_ .

A heartbeat that makes everything too real for Beca and brings out the consequences of her actions that she is not ready to assume. 

That makes fear a strong and invincible presence.

“There it is!” Beca can hear the smile filling Dr. Gwen’s voice, as if this is her firstappointment after graduating. “What a big baby you’re growing!” Dr. Gwen pushes some buttons on the keyboard before she continues. “You’re six weeks pregnant. It’s too early to tell by ultrasound if your baby is a boy or a girl, but you can make a blood-“

“Don’t tell me.” Beca shoots in a rush, cutting off the Doctor’s sentence. “I just... don’t wanna know.” She tries to smile at the Doctor, but it comes out more like a grimace and Beca just knows she failed. 

“Oh, that’s okay.” Dr. Gwen smiles down at her. “Life doesn’t have many surprises it’s good to have this one.”

The Doctor cleans the gel of Beca’s belly and keeps talking for another fifteen minutes. She warns Beca about the pregnancy symptoms she might feel within the next months and the ones she shouldn’t feel but if she does she should run to the hospital right away. 

Beca leaves the hospital feeling more anxious than she arrived. She isn’t good at taking care of herself, much less taking care of herself for two. 

Because well, there’s a little thing living inside of her.

A human-to-be.

Beca didn’t see it, but she did hear it.

Strong, vividly tumps of a beating heart that’s alive and fighting for it.

Well.

That’s overwhelming. 

And Beca’s so deeply buried in her thoughts she almost misses the loud car horn behind her. She turns on her heels to find a hand waving at her a very well known brown head inside the car. 

“What are you doing here?” Beca asks, looking down at the car window.

Stacie signs as if it’s obvious. “I’m picking you up?” She takes her sunglasses off and leaves them at the top of her head. “Don’t be mad, Becs. We worry about you.” Stacie taps on the passenger seat. “Come on.” 

Beca walks to the passenger door and opens it, settling down on the seat at the same time Stacie starts the car once more. 

“Thank you for the ride.” She says, feeling thankful indeed. She’s tired as hell. 

“Yeah, no prob. So, how it went?” 

“Weird. That gel was fucking cold and the ultrasound machine was too heavy, it looked like the woman was trying to make a hole on my belly.” Beca tells Stacie in a rush and though her face was serious, Stacie laughs out loud at her words. 

“Oh, my God, you are so dramatic!” Staciesays between her laughs, calming herself down when she stops the car on a red light. “But everything’s okay?” She misses the way Beca’s head tilt in confusion. “With the baby, I mean.” She completes when her friend didn’t answer right away.

“Oh,” Beca grimaces. “Yeah, it’s fine. The Doctor said this one’s a big one, but it’s growing a hundred percent healthily.”

“Wow, a big baby coming out of this little body of yours? That’s shocki- oh, hey!” Stacie interrupts her own sentence, her voice suddenly filled with excitement. “I heard pregnancy makes woman, like, super duper horny. Are you feeling like that yet?” 

“Oh, my God, Stacie.” Beca rolls her eyes, because of course that was something very Stacie-likely to say. “ _No_ , I’ve been feeling nothing but nauseous the last six weeks.”

Stacie’s face falls as if she’s suddenly incredibly disappointed. “Oh no, that’s too bad!”

Beca starts to grab her things just when Stacie parks outside the dorms, turning to open the door and shooting another quick “thanks” to her friend for taking time to go and pick her up. 

Beca’s schedule says she has one more class starting in fifteen minutes and that would be enough time to take a quick shower and go back to campus. Beca does take a shower indeed, but the minute her body collapses against her bed, any thought about having to keep her brain occupied for almost two hours vanishes from her mind. 

She has her headphones on for about half an hour now, listening to music after music as a weak attempt to turn her brain off and giving up to sleep. Only that, it doesn’t come.

It never does when Beca’s head is working on a loop and her heart is full with fear.

Her eyes land on the white desk she shares with Chloe and the papers on it, suddenly bringing the memory of what the woman told Beca earlier. 

_Write to your baby._

And in the end, Beca doesn’t know how she ended up sitting on the chair with the pen between her fingers, looking down at a blank paper while waiting for the words to come to her. 

The only thing she does know is that the papers seemed to call for her and her body was filled with such necessity, as if she would die if she didn’t get up and write something. 

She has no idea how to start.

So Beca starts it the most obvious way.

_‘Dear Baby,’_

She shakes her head and gets up, telling herself that this is a stupid thing stupid mothers do. Mothers who are in love with their partners and their lives and their babies on the way that wereb very much  _planned_ , which is very different the way Beca’s life is right now.

But Beca has the need inside her chest to take a invisible weight off her shoulders. A weight that seems to have fallen over her the minute she entered that ultrasound room and if it doesn’t disappear, she’s going to explode. Because it’s not like she would tell anyone about her insecurities, Beca’s not like that and her friends are pretty aware of that fact. And having the thought Chloe, her best friend, still doesn’t know about the tiny thing that’s terrifying Beca the most, brings a knot to her stomach that seems impossible to be taken apart.

Beca realizes she’s standing in the middle of her empty bedroom, with her mouth opened as if she’s in the middle of a sentence. Only that, there’s no one to talk to.

Except the paper filled with two single words. 

She sits down again, not caring anymore about her own head’s judgments.

‘ _You’re probably still smaller than an apple and I don’t think you can listen to my voice yet, but I’m feeling everything at the same time right now. It’s like a mix of anxiety and expectation and fear of the unknown, for this situation being unplanned and surprising._

_‘And it kind of terrifies me._

_‘It terrifies me, because I heard your heart beating at full force today and even though you’re not big enough to change my body, i know  you are there. I can feel you every day, in every time I run to the bathroom or when I’m too emotional to the point of crying over missing breakfast. _

_‘You are there showing me all the signs, and still I can’t accept it.’_

The words are flowing so fast and natural it almost seems like the pen is writing by itself and Beca’s only holding it. And deep inside, she doesn’t care if her words sound too dramatic or harsh, because they’re only a mere attempt of putting her messy tangled fears into words.

So Beca only lets the pen guides her, not caring about where it’ll take her. 

_ ‘This moment still is only ours, I can count on my fingers the people who know about you. You’re being fed by me, you’re breathing by me. I’m the only thing you know yet, your very first home. _

_‘But I just wanna tell you if you open your eyes for the first time and sees yourself in a family that hasn’t your eyes, your hair or smile, it’s because I’m sure they’ll give you all the love I wouldn’t be able to._

_‘I’m weak and hopeless and fearful, while you are pure and innocent and it’s about to bring a whole new season of hope to this world._

_‘I’m a walking chaos, little one. And I don’t want you to have to live between it all._

_‘I’m not sure of what the future is about to bring for us, but if the worst happens and we end up being separated, I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will forgive me._

_‘All my love,_

_‘Beca.’_

Beca finishes writing and keeps sat down for a very long time. She hears the strong tumps of the random music playing on her ear and can’t help but being taken back to the ultrasound room. She could never explain the feeling that overtook her the minute she heard the baby’s heart.

_Her_ baby’s heart. 

She reads the words she put on paper and the way she feels about to cry over her own words was never something Beca’s ever thought to be possible. Her heart aches from thinking she isn’t capable of raising this tiny heart she’s growing, but at the same time she’s so scared of trying and failing drastically.

Because Beca doesn’t know how to deal with failure. 

When the door opens and Chloe enters the room, Beca jumps. Her hands unconsciously fly to cover her words and she takes her headphones off.

“Oops, sorry.” Chloe kind of laughs. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Beca hides the paper she used under her homework’s and twirls the chair so she can look at Chloe. “That’s okay.”

Chloe drops her bag on the floor next to the desk and walks towards her bed, kneeling on it and taking a blue pen from the shelf above it. She paints the day on the calendar with the blue pen and drops it again, moving to throw herself into Beca’s bed.

“God, I studied my ass off today.” The redhead closes her eyes and the little frown between her eyebrows has Beca wishing she could kiss it off.

It’s not like it’s the first time something like that passed to her mind.

And it’s not the first time she lays on her own bed beside Chloe, head buried in the crook of her best friend’s neck and hands finding their way to her body, being embraced back by Chloe’s arms. 

Chloe giggles when Beca’s hair tickles her neck. “I still need to shower, y’know.” She says quietly, her hands moving through Beca’s back.

The little sentence has Beca at the edge of falling apart, but she holds on tight to not cry, because crying would mean  _talking_ and she can’t tell Chloe about what she’s crying over.

Not yet.

“Can we... just stay like this?” Her voice trembles, but Beca can’t tell if Chloe noticed. “Just for a while?”

Chloe’s hands stop moving and she tightens her hold on Beca, bringing her friend even closer to her body.

The movement brings Beca back to her birthday. The day she found out about Chloe’s sister and the day Chloe broke down once they reached their room, holding Beca against herself so tightly Beca couldn’t even breathe. 

That was a new Chloe Beca got to see. A Chloe that’s fragile and breakable, just like she feels right now.

And even though writing the words actually took some of the weight off Beca’s shoulders, nothing can compare to the safety she feels between Chloe’s arms.

“Yeah,” Beca hears Chloe’s warm breath on her ear. “For a while.”


	6. VI - Chloe

Her phone rings for the seventh time. She doesn’t bother to pick it up, knowing for sure it’s one of the girls. They call her everyday. It’s mostly Aubrey or Stacie, but she still gets texts from Amy, Jessica and Ashley. Emily appears from time to time to make sure she’s alive, she takes her out and they have fun. Sometimes Lilly leaves baskets with candles which smells she’s never smelled before, some flowers and snacks. Aubrey cleans her house and fills her refrigerator with home cooked meals, telling her she can’t live from coffee and cigarettes forever. 

The sun is hot against her face when she leaves her car, walking two blocks to get to a little yellow building. She walks in, gives her name and waits. 

The waiting room is quiet and every little sound startles her. A pen being tapped against a table, the changing of a book page, feet scratching against the floor, over and over again. Everyone seems to be lost inside their own private worlds, battling with their own minds. But Chloe zones out, thinking about nothing. There is only the white room in her mind and her heartbeats loud in her ears. Suddenly, she’s aware her breathing, so she counts them. How many times she inspires and exhales. 

Chloe’s brain tries to warn her this is not the right thing to do because she gets breathless as if her lungs are full of holes and the air slips to nowhere. There are eyes on herself now, so Chloe closes hers, trying to think about _anything_. Someone calls her name, but the voice seems absurdly far. 

She opens her eyes.

“Chloe Beale?”

“Yes?”

“Doctor Adams is waiting for you. You must take the stairs and follow the corridor. Room 104 will be in your left.”

Chloe follows the instructions, not bothering on mumbling a single ‘thank you’ to the man behind the reception table. She reaches the room and the door is already open, with a smiling man holding it.

“Good afternoon, Miss Beale. I’m Doctor Adams, but you can call me Andrew. Is it okay if I call you Chloe?”

She nods once, entering the room while waiting for Andrew to close the door. Chloe is faced with a simple white table, with two chairs on each side. A bit to the right there are three chairs facing each other forming a circle.

“Where should I sit?”

“Make yourself at home.” Andrew tells her, and she’s moving to sit on the chair in one of the table’s sides when his calm voice makes her stop. “Okay, so what about we sit here?” He points to one of the chairs in the circle. “The table makes it look so formal.”

“Okay,” she mumbles, without recognizing her own voice.

Chloe leaves her bag on the floor by the side of the chair she chose, looking down at her hand and playing with her fingers while Andrew taps on his phone for a couple minutes. And she’s so, so nervous. There’s a weird feeling on her stomach, like it’s trembling and twirling crazily within her, even though she knows it has nothing to do with hunger because Aubrey made sure to FaceTime her as she ate a sandwich this morning. She’s not sure where to look at, her eyes taking the entire place in a single second.

“So, Chloe, this is your space,” Andrew starts, his dreads swinging when he moves his head to the side. “You’re free to vent, scream, cry, whatever you want. I’m going to start with a question and you can take your time to answer.” She nods once. “Why are you here?” 

Chloe blinks. Once, twice, so many times she thinks the psychologist might think she’s dumb. Her mouth opens and closes and she thinks she has no answer or just  can’t  answer that because Andrew’s eyes seem to be asking for a truth she’s not ready to give yet. So she goes with the first thing that comes to her mind.

“I just didn’t want to go insane. My thoughts... are too loud sometimes.”

“Okay,” Andrew says too slowly, like he’s giving Chloe time to get the meaning of the short word. “How did you find out about the clinic?”

“Hm, I... just through internet.”

“It’s great that you chose to find help by yourself. It doesn’t mean you’re weak though, only that you doesn’t have to go through the hard times by yourself. So why don’t you tell me a bit about what’s bothering you?”

And not for the first time in the day, Chloe doesn’t know what to say. There’s only her heartbeats again and Andrew looking at her and the walls so empty and so, so white, making her brain foggy as if she’s drunk from a very cheap wine. But then something clicks into place, so slowly and naturally and she’s is talking without realize it. Her words come easily and Chloe lets them out before she can overthink them. 

She doesn’t say names or tell stories. There are just feelings, so, so many ones. Chloe feels all words flying out of her mouth and sticking onto the empty walls staring back at her,  _judging_ her. 

Andrew almost doesn’t talk. There’s nothing on his hands, which Chloe finds weird, because aren’t psychologists supposed to take notes, or whatever? 

But Andrew observes. 

Chloe can feel his hazel eyes burning her face even when she’s looking away, too ashamed of the stupid things she’s saying she’s not even sure if they make any sense anymore.

And he listens, too. 

And Chloe is grateful. 

The appointment finishes as quickly as it began, Andrew schedules a new one for next week and there’s this weird moment where he walks downstairs behind her in an uncomfortable silence, as if she hadn’t just spoken her heart out to him, a someone Chloe doesn’t even know. 

She lights a cigarette up the minute she’s out, inhaling and exhaling deeply as the cigarette burns way too fast. She doesn’t want to cry, but her body seems to be screaming at her she must cry _right now_ . The tears are quickly filling her eyes, some fall before Chloe even blinks and then she’s mad. So absurdly mad for not being able to control her own body, she reaches out to angrily wipe them away, not caring a bit when she feels a nail scratching the sensitive skin close to her left eye. 

In a rush to get to her car, Chloe stumbles on a plastic bag and falls in her butt. She doesn’t even have any time to kick the bag away like her brain suggests, because she realizes the bag is moving almost as if it’s breathing. She gets on her knees and opens it to find four tiny puppies and her heart warms up for a moment, before she’s angry again, thinking about how it is possible to someone throw away indefensible little things away like that. She takes the bag and carefully places it on the passenger seat, before starting her car and driving towards her house. 

The drive back was supposed to be calm, if Chloe wasn’t in a rush. For what exactly she isn’t sure, since there isn’t anyone waiting for her and nothing in her life has been exciting for the last few weeks. She parks and literally jumps out of the car and into her house. It happens so quickly she doesn’t even see it. When Chloe comes back to herself, her hands are vividly purple and the guest room’s walls are full of meaningless words.

Hurt, Mind, Sick.

Family, Mother, Father.

Sister.

Closer, Understanding, Liar and Eat.

Loneliness, Baby and Lucky,

Love and Stars.

Tired, Tired, Tired. 

The letters are shaky, some too close to each other and some too desperately written to make sense for someone else, but Chloe understands everything. She has no idea why she did it. Maybe it is just an attempt to avoid writing them on her own skin and be forced to look at them everywhere, forever. 

“Chloe?” She turns around, the paint spray still in hands. “Hm, what are you doing?”

“I’m just, um... writing some emotions.” Chloe shakes her head, realizing how that probably was the dumbest answer ever, but then she shakes it again, realizing she doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone, especially Theo. “What are you doing here?”

Theo shrugs. “The front door was open and I thought I should come in to see if you were okay.”

“You don’t casually walk through my neighborhood, Theo.” She places the spray on the nightstand.

“I know, I just- I’m so sorry, Chloe. I had no idea. I tried to call her before, but...” 

Chloe listens to the words dying on Theo’s voice and almost feels herself sympathizing with him, before reminding everything she went through. She bites the inside of her cheek. “Don’t you dare to cry right now.” 

He looks at her. “I just can’t stop thinking.”

“I can’t, either.” Blue barks to catch her attention and only then Chloe realizes he’s on her bed, little dots of purple all around his white hair. There’s an odd feeling in her mind, like she might be forgetting someth- “Oh, my God, the puppies!”

She rushes out of her house and opens the passenger door of her car to get the puppies out safely. 

Theo is out too, looking at her curiously as he unlocks his own car. Chloe turns to enter the house when his voice reaches her. 

“Hope.”

  
She turns around. “What?”

“Hope is an emotion, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! ❤️


End file.
